The orchestral work discussed in the previous chapter is anomalous within Moerane's output and struggles, to be seen as on a par with similar works in any country's classical orchestral repertoire. Moerane's choral music, on the other hand, emerged in a very different way, along a very different trajectory – the other of the two ‘parallel streams’ of composition in southern Africa. Moerane composed short unaccompanied choral works throughout his life, and had a ready platform for their performance and reception: choral competitions in African communities. However, the skills Moerane learnt during his BMus studies placed him in a class of his own here too, even though he was on familiar performance terrain. The reason why many of the works that he wrote were never performed or even known until recently may have been because they were too ‘difficult’ in their harmonies and vocal writing.

The Catalogue of Works by Michael Mosoeu Moerane given in the Appendix (hereafter the Catalogue) and on the ACE website, lists for the first time all Moerane's known works. They are presented by genre: the orchestral work, followed by original choral works for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), then SSAA, SAA, SA, and Moerane's eight arrangements of American spirituals, which are scored for various voices. This is a publisher's grouping, made for sales purposes, so it says nothing about the style of the music, the subject matter of the lyrics, or how the music was originally performed. Let me begin, then, with a sociocultural grouping based on the musical and textual expressions in the songs. For this purpose, I adapt Thembela Vokwana's categorisation of African choral music generally into three successive historical ‘expressions’:

• • Expressions modelled on European music with texts often borrowed from the literature of the English canonic masters read in schools as well as the Bible, and identifying strongly with the work of the European mission.

• • Expressions based on European models with texts of an independent and often more secular orientation, inspired by social themes in African societies and related to a burgeoning African nationalism.

• • Expressions derived from European models with sections incorporating components of traditional music or based throughout on such components, and related to protest against political and social injustice.